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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2015
Three humanist scholars, alumni of the Scottish Catholic college of St Andrew in the Spanish Netherlands, were recruited into the spy service of King James VI/I as intelligencers and couriers. As members of the ‘Republic of Letters’ Thomas Dempster, Thomas Reid and Thomas Seget were well placed to travel throughout Europe as well as correspond with fellow humanists at all the major courts. In doing so they were able to provide intelligence which helped James in his ambitions of becoming king of England and obtaining dynastic marriages for his children but they also pandered to his vain belief that he was a scholar of distinction. This paper attempts to show how their relationships to the King developed and what benefits these scholars derived from their service.
1 The Republic of Letters was an intellectual network among early modern scholars based on writing and exchange of letters. The first use of the term respublica litteraria occurred in 1417 in the correspondence of the Italian humanists, Francesco Barbaro and Poggio Bracciolini. They used the term to describe their commitment to a community devoted to the revival of ancient Roman republican ideals of education and knowledge. Later the concept expanded to include institutions such as universities and learned societies as well as individual scholars.
2 See McInally, T, The Sixth Scottish University—the Scots Colleges Abroad: 1575 to 1799, Leiden, 2012 Google Scholar
3 A principal donor was the Jesuit, Hippolytus Curle, who was nephew of Lord and Lady Curle. Lord Curle had been secretary to Mary Queen of Scots and his wife was one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting who attended her at her execution. The Curle family maintained their connection with the College for many years.
4 See McInally, T, ‘The Scots College Paris, 1652–81: A Centre for Scottish Networks’, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies, Vol. 2, No.1, University of Aberdeen, 2008, pp. 13–29 Google Scholar
5 The Colleges provided help to the Stuarts during their exile in Paris from the late 1640s to the Restoration and again to James VII/II and his descendants following the Glorious Revolution. Before dying King James wrote a long advisory letter to his young son. In it he recommended that when he was re-established on his thrones he should forbid the Irish attending their Colleges on the continent since they afforded excellent facilities for foreign powers to disrupt affairs in Britain. Portland Papers, MS 70522 FF 15–29
6 Justus Lipsius (Joose Lips) (1547–1606) philologist and humanist philosopher. Born in Brabant Lipsius was a Catholic but changed his publicly professed faith from Catholic to Lutheran to Calvinist in order to gain positions at the universities of Jena, Cologne and Leiden from 1572 to 1592. When he took up the chair of Latin History and Literature at Louvain he was again a professed Catholic. Lipsius’s pragmatism in this matter possibly affected Seget, Reid and Dempster in their declared changes of faith.
7 Dempster’s autobiography contained many exaggerated claims. His enthusiasm for those issues that he held dear (principally himself and Scotland) led him to make a number of nonsensical claims which led to a lessening of respect for the quality of his scholarship. See The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004 (hereafter cited as (DNB), Vol.15, pp. 759–62
8 He also claimed to have a pension from the king of Spain.
9 Dempster’s poetical works are best known from anthologies. In Obitum Aldinae Catellae: lachrymae poeticae, Paris, 1622 and Delitiae poetorum Scotorum, Amsterdam, 1637. His histories include De Etruria Regali, Pisa, 1620 and Historia ecclesiastica gentis Scotorum, Bologna, 1627 (posthumous publication).
10 By his own account!
11 Rosinus’, Antiquitatum Romanorum corpus absolutissimum, Paris, 1613 Google Scholar. Johannes Rosinus (Johann Roszfeld, 1550–1626) was a contemporary of Dempster who published his work, Most Complete Body of Roman Antiquities, in Basel in 1585. Dempster’s edition of 1613 expanded the work by including additional information on the archaeological discoveries which were being uncovered during the extensive building work being undertaken in Rome.
12 Panegyricus augustissimo potentissimoque principe Jacopo I, London, 1615
13 The account of Dempster’s marriage and other aspects of his life such as his quick temper and perpetual quarrelling are given in a short biography of him written by Gian Vittorio Rossi (1577–1647). Pinacotheca imaginum illustrium, doctrinae el ingenii laude, virorum, qui, auctore superstite, diemv suum obierunt, Coloniae Ubiorum, 1643–48. These three volumes are the works for which Rossi is principally known. In them he wrote biographies of three hundred of his contemporaries from material which he had gathered either first hand or from current gossip. He wrote of Dempster’s first meeting with Susan Weller that she was “so abundant, so favoured by Venus that nothing else would do but that he have her to wife”. Rossi’s and Dempster’s accounts of the Scotsman’s life disagree on a number of points. It is likely that neither is completely accurate: Dempster wrote to enhance his reputation and Rossi to provide entertaining stories.
14 Several of Paul V’s predecessors had attempted to convert James to Catholicism with the offer of support for his claim to the English throne. The last approach had been made only three years before James’s accession in 1603. The pope viewed the marriage between James’s heir, Charles, and the Catholic Infanta as an opportunity to improve conditions for Catholics in Britain.
15 The book was highly influential on the writing of history because it dealt with the subject in the round rather than limiting it to the actions of great men. As well as dealing with Etruria in antiquity he covered its modern economic history.
16 He was able to work without the distraction of his wife who had run off with one of his pupils.
17 The Oath of Allegiance was passed as law by the English parliament in 1606 following the Gunpowder Plot of the previous year. It required all subjects to swear primary allegiance to the king and deny the pope’s international authority especially his “right” to depose kings. Pope Paul V condemned the Oath and in 1609 James wrote a defence stating that it was not intended to breach anyone’s conscientious convictions. James published this work in two editions—one directed to the pope and Catholic sovereigns: the other to Protestant rulers—and presented copies to fellow princes and kings who largely ridiculed his arguments. (See below) Stewart, Alan, The Cradle King, A life of James VI and I, London, 2003 Google Scholar
18 By January 1622 foreign ambassadors at James’s court were reporting home that the King was not mentally well. Stewart, , The Cradle King, p.332 Google Scholar
19 Prior to his elevation to the papacy, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini had been Protector of the Scottish Nation and continued to show interest in Scottish matters throughout his papacy. Dempster’s friendship with Barberini dated from his arrival in Rome. He was a close friend of another Scottish humanist, George Strachan, who was resident in Rome when Dempster first arrived. Strachan had been educated at the Scots College in Rome and among other activities was employed by the pope as a spy having served in a similar role for Henry IV of France. While in Rome he was able to provide introductions to the Roman court for Scottish visitors. For fuller details see Dellavida, G. L., George Strachan, Aberdeen, 1956 Google Scholar
20 Historia ecclesiastica gentis Scotorum, Bologna, 1627. The work draws on previous histories of Scotland by Mair, Boece and Buchanan. A section of the book is given over to Dempster’s autobiography from which much of the surviving knowledge of the poet derives. The book’s introduction which is in verse was written by his friend George Strachan.
21 DNB Vol. 46, pp. 413–4
22 For a period of about twenty years following Crichton’s principal-ship, the Scots College in the Spanish Netherlands was under the protection of the Belgica province of the Society of Jesus. Later Scottish principals were extremely strict on doctrinal matters in their examination of applicants to the college. McInally, , The Sixth Scottish University, p. 131 Google Scholar
23 As shown in Seget’s Album Amicorum. At the time he was court poet to James in Scotland and secretary to Queen Anna. Queen Anna was a Catholic sympathiser—she secretly converted to Catholicism in 1598—and Ayton served as her secretary until her death in 1619. Ayton was Calvinist but must have taken a relaxed view of the Queen’s Catholic views.
24 Ayton’s illness was not fatal. He recovered and outlived both James and Thomas Reid dying in 1638. He devoted the remainder of his life to writing poetry in Scots, English and Latin. On Reid’s death in 1624 Ayton published a poem eulogising his work, In obitum Th. Rhaedi … epicedium., London, 1624.
25 Ayton acted as envoy on James’s behalf for the delivery of his book, Premonition to All Most Mighty Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes and States of Christendom, to European monarchs, including Emperor Rudolf II. The book was an attempt to rally support for James’s opposition to the pope’s condemnation of his insistence on an oath of allegiance to be taken by all his Catholic subjects. DNB, Vol. 3, pp. 58–9
26 The events leading up to the start of what became the Thirty Years War were of crucial interest to James given the prominent parts played by his son-in-law, Frederick, Elector Palatine, and his brother-in-law, King Christian IV of Denmark.
27 He did this in collaboration with Patrick Young, Royal Librarian. The work was published in 1619. A copy, presumably Reid’s own, survives in the Library of the University of Aberdeen. Shelfmark: AUL 000399687
28 I am grateful to Dr. Iain Beavan of the University of Aberdeen for background information on the friendship between Young and Reid.
29 This was the rarest book in his collection and came from the Old Royal Library at Westminster Palace. Library of the University of Aberdeen, Shelfmark: AUL 000399687
30 The income from this capital sum was so high in the beginning that the librarian was the highest paid person in the university.
31 Otakar, Odlozilik, ‘Thomas Seget: A Scottish Friend of Szymon Szymonowicz’, The Polish Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, New York, 1966, p. 3 Google Scholar. Surprisingly there is no entry for Seget in DNB. There is a short biography in Irving, David, Scottish Poets, Edinburgh, 1804 Google Scholar
32 Nevertheless he made friends with scholars of different branches of Protestantism— Calvinists, Lutherans, Arians, Antitrinitarians and other Odlozilik, s., ‘Thomas Seget’, p. 30 Google Scholar
33 British Museum, Add. MSS. 38597, fol. 71v-72r.
34 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Lat. 9385. Also there are entries for fellow students at the Scots college—William Barclay and William Seton. Sir Walter Lindsay and Arthur Gordon who also signed appear to be relatives of other fellow students. Records of the Scots Colleges, Vol. 1, New Spalding Club, Aberdeen, 1906, pp. 5–8
35 Ortelius was the originator of the first world atlas. His maps were significantly improved in detail and presentation. As a noted classicist he helped Marc Welser publish The Peutinger Table. Although born in Antwerp his family came from Augsburg and the Ortels were still prominent there. When Ortelius died in 1598 Lipsius wrote his epitaph.
36 Seget was about 27 years old.
37 Welser, like Galileo Galilei, was later (1613) to be inducted as a corresponding member into the Academia dei Lincei, the first scientific society to be founded. Welser and Galileo corresponded on the latter’s observations of sun spots. Alex, Keller, “Keen Sighted as the Lynx”, History Today, Vol. 62, No. 3, March 2012, p. 41 Google Scholar
38 Vesalius was a distinguished anatomist who through his public dissections of corpses while professor of anatomy at the University of Padua refuted Galens’ ancient texts on the subject. In 1543 he published De Humanis Corporis Fabrica which launched the modern study of anatomy. Although he was working in Italy he arranged for the work to be printed in Basel.
39 David Hoeschel (1556–1617) was leader of a small group of scholars in Augsburg who ran the humanist publishing house of Ad Insignia Pinus which specialised in the printing of original Greek and Latin texts not previously published. The funding came from Marc Welser (1558–1614) the independently wealthy Augsburg scholar. The publishing house was renowned for the high quality of its work.
40 Pinelli provided Seget with accommodation in Padua. While staying with him he met many more classicists. When Pinelli died in 1601 Seget was appointed administrator of his library. Odlozilik, , ‘Thomas Seget’, p. 16 Google Scholar
41 Galileo stayed with Pinelli several times while in Padua and met with Seget on those occasions too. Odlozilik, ‘Thomas Seget’, p. 10 Google Scholar
42 Isaac Casaubon (1559–1614) was an eminent classical scholar and philologist. A French Protestant who was expert on the works of the early Church Fathers he became a controversial figure during France’s wars of religion. In 1610 King James VI/I invited him to England where the king misappropriated the scholar’s learning for use in his own writings. Casaubon did not survive long thereafter and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
43 There is no record of Seget’s misdemeanour and it is possible that it involved disagreements with the Podesta of Padua regarding the degree of control that the Venetian authorities could exercise over the running of the University of Padua. The University had been founded on the principles of a student-run establishment but by the early seventeenth century this control had been largely usurped by the Senate under the control of the Venetian governor. Seget’s position as Conciliarius represented one of the few remaining vestiges of student power and could have brought him into conflict with the authorities. This is unlikely, however, since it is clear that the Venetian authorities did not view Seget’s transgression as a minor matter. His release was secured only after the involvement of the British ambassador and even so Wotton did not manage to have him released until he had served two years in prison and on condition that he left Venetian territories permanently.
44 Odlozilik, , ‘Thomas Seget’, pp. 17–18 Google Scholar
45 At a demonstration at the University of Bologna neither the professor of astronomy, Giovanni Antonio Magini, nor his guests were able to see the moons. This was no doubt due to their unfamiliarity with the instrument but it was a major blow to Galileo since Magini was a friend. Helden, Albert Van, ‘Telescopes and Authority from Galileo to Cassini’, Osiris, 2nd Series, Vol. 9, Instruments, 1994, p. 11 Google Scholar
46 Odlozilik, , “Thomas Seget”, p. 27 Google Scholar
47 Seget wrote to Galileo informing him of Kepler’s experiment before Kepler had either published or even written to Galileo himself. Odlozilik, p. 27. In 1611 the Jesuit mathematicians and astronomers at the Collegio Romano in Rome reported that Galileo’s observations were correct. This endorsement resulted in Galileo’s induction into the prestigious Academia dei Lincei. Van Helden, pp. 13–14
48 Seget had published some of Szymonowicz’s poems in 1608. This was several years before the two men met but ensured Szymonowicz’s gratitude and friendship. This may be seen as an indication that Seget was still in receipt of payment from the King since it is difficult to understand how he would otherwise have afforded to publish the work. Odlozilik, , ‘Thomas Seget’, p. 22 Google Scholar
49 The Act required four propositions to be passed. First, that all mutually hostile laws between the two Kingdoms be repealed. Secondly, that power of extradition be granted between England and Scotland. This requirement was seen by James as essential to pacification of the Borders. Thirdly, that naturalisation rights in England be accorded to all subjects of the king and fourthly, that all customs barriers to trade between the two countries be removed. Through his privy council in Scotland James could ensure that all these points would be approved for Scotland but the English parliament agreed to only the first and rejected all the others. Stewart, The Cradle King, pp. 213–4
50 Odlozilik, , ‘Thomas Seget’, p. 35 Google Scholar
51 His treatises on tobacco and witchcraft are illustrative of this. The scornful reaction of foreign princes to his book on the Oath of Allegiance was as much based on the view that the King’s scholarship was of an indifferent character as it was on any disagreement with its arguments.